1917 ~ French munition ship "Mont Blanc" explodes in Halifax (1,900 die) At 9:04:35 the munitions ship “Mont Blanc” explodes in Halifax harbor after being struck by another ship. It is the largest man-made explosion prior to the atomic age (about 2.9 kiloton). The ship was carrying 200 tons of TNT, 61 tons of gun cotton, 35 tons of Benzyl, and 2,300 tons of picric acid; the explosion destroys 325 acres of the city, leaving 1,900 people dead and injuring over 9,000.More:http://www.halifaxfiremuseum.org/explosion.htmlAnd:http://www.halifax.ca/community/explode.html

1865 ~ US 13th Amendment ratified - slavery abolished"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

The 1631 predicted transit of Venus did occur on Dec. 6, but no one observed it. The astronomers in Europe planned to make the observation, but the calculations of Kepler were not sufficiently accurate to show it would be visible from mid-pacific to middle-east; not in Europe. (It was first observed 4 December 1639.) The most recent transit was in 2004, and the next will be in 2012.

1830 - The first U.S. Naval Observatory established at Washington, DC, under command of Lieutenant Louis Malesherbes.

1982 ~ Norman Mayer holds Washington Monument hostageNorman David Mayer was shot dead on December 8th, 1982 by the U.S. Park Police for threatening to blow up the Washington Monument. Mayer had driven his van (which he told police was loaded with explosives) to the base of the Monument, which he held hostage for ten hours.
Dressed in a snowsuit and motorcycle helmet, Mayer bluffed that he had a partner working with him, that the remote control in his hands was a detonator, and that there were 1,000 pounds of dynamite in his van.
Eight tourists were trapped inside at the time; Mayer let them go.
He planned to use the siege to draw attention to his cause: stopping the nuclear arms race. Among his demands was more media attention to the abolition of nuclear weapons. Mayer said, "They have been pretending that we are not threatened every day of our lives with annihilation. And whether by conclusion or otherwise, they refuse to give the real information about the precarious and uncontrollable situation the world finds itself in. It's up to the press."
He climbed back into the van and started driving away at 7:30 pm. Park Police opened fire, hitting Mayer twice in the arm, once on the chin, and once in the left temple. Police insist they were aiming for the van's engine.
Mayer was pronounced dead on the scene.

1980 ~ John Lennon, assassinated by Mark David Chapman

1963 ~ Boing 707 explodes after lightning strike (81 die)The fuel tank of a Pan Am 707 exploded in flight near Elkton, Maryland, apparently after being struck by lightning. The lightning caused a spark that ignited fuel vapor in a tank.
Several airliner crashes have been caused by lightning. In 1976 near Madrid, Spain, all 17 people aboard an Iranian Air Force 747 jumbo jet died when a lightning strike to the wingtip ignited the jet fuel and blew the wing apart.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board's database one of the last reports of lightning causing any airline to crash was in 1981 and involved a small airliner in Germany. In 2000, a Chinese airliner was hit by lightning and crashed but no details were made available and it was not known if the plane had any lightning protection built in.
Boeing estimates that every commercial airplane is hit by lightning (on average) about twice a year.

1914 ~ The Battle of the Falkland IslandsA month after German naval forces, led by Admiral Maximilian von Spee, inflicted the Royal Navy’s first defeat in a century by sinking two British cruisers with all hands off the southern coast of Chile, Spee’s squadron attempts to raid the Falkland Islands, only to be thwarted by the British navy, under the command of Admiral Doveton Sturdee.Germanylost four warships and more than 2,000 sailors in the Falkland Islands, compared with only 10 British deaths.

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Gord May "If you didn't have the time or money to do it right in the first place, when will you get the time/$ to fix it?"

From http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/09043.htmRiver Gunboat USS “Wake” (PR 3):”Surrendered to Japanese forces at Shanghai, 8 December 1941; Struck from the Naval Register, 25 March 1942; Renamed HIJNS Tatara by Japan; Recovered by U.S. forces in August 1945; Transferred to Nationalist China in 1946 and renamed RCS Tai Yuan; Captured by Communist Chinese forces in 1949. Fate unknown.”

1896 ~ Alfred Nobel dies at 63When Alfred Nobel died on December 10, 1896, it was discovered that he had left a will, dated November 27, 1895, according to which most of his vast wealth was to be used for five prizes, including one for peace. The prize for peace was to be awarded to the person who "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding of peace congresses." The prize was to be awarded "by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting." It was to take three years of various legal actions before the first Nobel Prizes could actually be awarded.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to 94 persons and 19 organizations since 1901.More:The Norwegian Nobel InstituteAnd:Alfred Nobel

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Gord May "If you didn't have the time or money to do it right in the first place, when will you get the time/$ to fix it?"

I've spent several months trying to figure out what's going on, because I simply cannot get access to DANFS or anything else on history.navy.mil. Even when following a link from elsewhere on navy.mil. Gord, are you actually getting through to the server? I had been thinking it might be that navy was firewalling all non-USA IPs...

The US Navy came under electronic attack and their network was infiltrated by unknown hackers. Until they can locate the intruder and determine the level and method of compromise they've locked down a considerable amount of their public facing web services. I think the primary point of intrusion was the US Naval War College in Newport RI. A lot of Gov't sites have come under considerable increase in intrusions over the last while, ours included. You'll probably notice a rollback in web services from a lot of Gov't sites while the IT security guys are hardening their systems against intrusion. I've personally learned more about IT security in the past week than I cared to.

__________________Yours Aye! Rick ~^~^~^^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~~^~^~~^~^~^^~~^~^"It's not the boat "you built" until you've sworn at it, bled on it, sweated over it, cried beside it and then threatened to haul the POS outside and burn it!"

1992 ~ Epic Nor'easter storm hits NEA severe weather system of snow, sleet, rain, and high winds struck Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and West Virginia. The highest recorded winds from this winter storm, called a nor'easter, were 80 miles per hour (mph) gusts at Cape May, New Jersey, with sustained winds of 20-30 mph. The tidal surge was 1-4 feet above normal, and wave heights were 20-25 feet near the shore. The 24-hour snowfall was 27 inches in the hills west of Boston. Flooding was recorded at 4-5 feet in both Boston and New York City. In the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts, 4 feet of snow fell, with drifts as high as 10 feet.
The National WeatherService called this storm "one of the epic storms of all time". Insured losses mounted to $ 850 million, with total damages around $ 2 billion, and nine deaths. High storm surges caused many mandatory evacuations in coastal areas.

1981 ~ Muhammad Ali's 61st and last fight, losing to Trevor Berbick

1967 ~ People's front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) established

1866 ~ 1st trans-Atlantic yacht raceThe Great Ocean Race, as the newspapers call it, begins off New Jersey’s Sandy Hook point in New York Harbor. James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald, helms "Henrietta" to victory as she reaches Lizard Point, England, in 13 days, 21 hours, and 55 minutes.

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Gord May "If you didn't have the time or money to do it right in the first place, when will you get the time/$ to fix it?"

1941 ~ United States seizes French liner “Normandie”At the end of her 139th Atlantic crossing, the French Line's “Normandie” arrived in New York on 28 August 1939, and would never sail again. Mothballed at Pier 88, she was taken into custody by the U.S. Coast Guard when France was occupied in June 1940, and less than a week after Pearl Harbor she was taken over by the U.S. Maritime Commission and was renamed U.S.S. “Lafayette”.

1098 ~ Crusaders capture & plunder M'arrat-an-NumanChristian Crusaders (first crusade) capture the city of M'arrat-an-Numan, a small city east of Antioch. According to reports, Crusaders are observed eating the flesh of both adults and children; as a consequence, the Franks would be labeled "cannibals" by Turkish historians.

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Gord May "If you didn't have the time or money to do it right in the first place, when will you get the time/$ to fix it?"